This episode explores the shift from traditional search and ecommerce flows into a new agentic commerce environment where shoppers are using AI surfaces to discover, compare, and increasingly delegate parts of the buying journey.
Ashish explains what Google was seeing internally that led to the development of UCP, why the protocol was designed to be open and ecosystem-wide, and why the ambition goes far beyond checkout. He also shares how Google is thinking about discovery, conversational product data, merchant readiness, and the long-term role of AI across the shopping journey.
For retailers, brands, marketplaces, and commerce tech teams, this conversation is a helpful window into what Google believes is changing now, and what foundations businesses should be investing in before the market fully shifts.
Highlights
- How Google’s large-scale ad and data systems shaped his approach to commerce
- Why UCP emerged now, and the two major trends that inspired it
- Why Google believes agentic commerce needs an open, ecosystem-wide standard
- Why the future of UCP extends far beyond checkout
- How discovery is starting to take shape within the protocol
- Why richer, more conversational product data matters in AI shopping experiences
- What retailers need to do now to improve visibility on AI surfaces
- How Google is thinking about the relationship between agentic commerce and advertising
- Why agentic commerce is still early, but already moving from concept to reality
Agentic commerce is still early, but this conversation makes one thing clear: the infrastructure decisions being made now will shape who gets discovered, considered, and chosen in the next era of shopping.
Timestamps
2:32 — Welcome and introduction to Ashish Gupta
5:01 — Building Google’s data infrastructure and declarative querying at scale
9:43 — AI at Google before the current wave
11:32 — What it means to be an Engineering Fellow at Google
14:00 — Balancing technical leadership and operational leadership
16:10 — Why Ashish moved into merchant shopping
17:41 — The origin story behind UCP
24:58 — Why Google chose an open protocol approach
27:50 — Responding to skepticism around Google’s commerce efforts
32:30 — Discovery, catalog search, and where UCP expands next
35:39 — Multi-item and multi-merchant cart support
37:43 — New protocol capabilities and partner onboarding
38:42 — Why product data quality matters more in AI shopping
43:22 — How shoppers are using AI surfaces in more complex ways
47:47 — Agentic commerce and advertising
50:10 — Where agentic commerce may go from here
51:46 — Closing thoughts and where to follow Ashish
👉 Connect with Ashish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishgupta98/
👉 Check out UCP announcement: https://www.retailgentic.com/p/flash-googlenrf-announces-universal
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